Light field capture devices, such as, for example, light field still and video cameras, can be used to capture, and optionally process, light field image data. Some light field capture devices can also accept and act upon user input and display or otherwise output images and/or other types of data. Light field capture devices can include a variety of different optical components used to capture light field image data, including sensors (such as CCD or CMOS sensors), microlens arrays, main lenses, and/or lens arrays.
Light field capture devices may capture light field image data using any suitable method for doing so. One example of such a method includes, without limitation, using a microlens array on top of an image sensor (e.g., a CCD or CMOS sensor) as described in Ng et al., Light field photography with a hand-held plenoptic capture device, Technical Report CSTR 2005-02, Stanford Computer Science. Other examples include the use of a plurality of independently controlled cameras, each with its own lens and sensor, an array of cameras that image onto a single shared sensor, a plenoptic lens, and/or any combination of these.
In many environments, light field capture devices capture light field image data in the form of highly modulated 4D data that can then be processed to generate 2D and/or 3D output images which can be viewed by a user. Examples of such processing may include (but are not limited to) generating refocused images, parallax views or perspective-shifted images, all-in-focus or extended depth of field (EDOF) images, depth maps, 3D/stereo images, and any combination thereof.
Such processing of light field image data can be expensive in terms of computational resources, memory bandwidth, and/or power requirements. Thus, in many conventional systems, sacrifices are made in image quality, processing time, resolution, and the like, in order to facilitate light field capture. Users are therefore forced to trade off between the flexibility and capabilities of light field image capture, on the one hand, and high levels of image quality and resolution on the other.